SEGA Game Gear gets overhauled with an HD IPS screen and USB-C charging as YouTube modder pulls out all the stops

A SEGA Game Gear received an extensive overhaul as YouTuber Macho Nacho Productions took it upon themself to refresh the classic '90s handheld into a modernized retro system, outfitted with USB-C charging, an HD screen, and a custom audio board from SYF with a stereo speaker setup to boot.

Tito Perez from Macho Nacho Productions sourced a Game Gear motherboard from eBay and salvaged it for parts using a de-soldering gun to extract the CPU or ASIC chip, link port, and cartridge reader. 

He soldered the components onto a reverse-engineered motherboard designed by the European modding group, SYF. This was due to the low quality and leaky capacitors on the original motherboard, rendering it potentially unsalvageable. The SYF board also features a region toggle switch, enabling him to switch between North American and Japanese settings.

Tito upgraded it with a BennVenn GGHD (rev 3) LCD kit from High Score Tech Supply, which features a 640 x 480 IPS LCD screen, scan lines and scaling modes, and support for HDMI output. However, compatibility is limited to VA0 and VA1 Game Gear motherboards.

For context, the original Game Gear features an 8-bit, 3.2-inch backlit LCD with a resolution of 160 x 144 pixels, capable of displaying 32 colors, but also suffers from poor contrast.

Perhaps the most impressive upgrades came at the audio and battery end, with the original mono Texas Instruments SN76489 chip was replaced with SYF’s custom audio board and dual aftermarket speakers.

The original Game Gear ran on a mammoth six AA batteries, which lasted 3-5 hours due to the fluorescent backlight it leveraged for its display. Tito opted for two 2,000 mAh lithium-ion batteries that could be recharged via USB-C, along with LED indicators to display their charging status.

To top it all off, Tito packed all the components inside a Retro Gear Customs shell in a matte gray finish, complemented by a custom orange start button and Japanese Kanji at the bottom. 

The SEGA Game Gear was launched in Japan on October 6, 1990. SEGA’s handheld shipped 40,000 units in the first two days, and had 10.62 million global sales by March 1996.

However, capacitor failures and battery issues affected its market share compared to Nintendo’s Game Boy, which sold 300,000 units in Japan within the first two weeks.

The Game Gear sold almost 11 million units globally by 1997 and trailed behind Nintendo’s dominant market share. SEGA discontinued the Game Gear at the tail end of 1997.

Collectors like Tito, however, like to breathe new life into old hardware, reviving obsolete consoles from the brink of death while bridging nostalgia with modern tech.

One does have to wonder if this is in effect a ‘what if’ episode of a potential Game Gear refresh from SEGA back in the day that could have seen it still be a force in the modern console industry.